Big Brother Birthday Wishes

Now it is time to wish a 'Happy Birthday' to my other brother, Willie. He is the oldest of us three, so I will be nice and not say how old he is turning, well I do not think he will care...29! Not quite the big hump, but next year I can tease him relentlessly and then in a few years he can return the torment! Now what to say about Willie??? My brother is a very interesting character. He always keeps you on your toes in your conversations with him. You never know what direction he will go with the conversation; when he will choose to argue with you or throw out a totally random joke! I adore my brother and all of his crazy rants that he goes on about, especially the most recent, zombies! A few years back I bought him the book, The Zombie Survival Guide (located in the humor section, yes it really was Willie). Both of my brothers are not huge fans of reading, unlike me, but when I was poor and working at Barnes & Noble that is what everyone got (you got to love employee discounts)! Anyway, Willie is reading parts of the book and loves to share the information with me. It is hilarious!! I think that he has a bit of a conspiracy theorist in him!

I am hoping to convince Willie to come out for a visit (hint, hint). Poor Colin has yet to meet his other west coast uncle. I know that like Uncle Greggie, Colin will adore Willie. For one, Colin is amazed by tall people. He just stares, so if you are a taller person you already got it made! I just need to get him on a plane!!! Or Will and I will just have to hurry our plans to visit Oregon. Most likely the latter (I am pretty sure that I am the only person in my family that enjoys flying. I think Willie is the winner for being the one to dislike it the most)!

Willie - Happy Birthday!!! I love you and miss you! Cannot wait for you to finally meet Colin...there are a lot of Civil War sites to see in Virginia (hint, hint)! Hope you have a great day! The next time I am home I will treat you to a Bob's Deli sandwich!! I miss that place, please do not tell me if it has closed! There are so many food joints that I miss there and all of them are on my list of places to go when I visit! I cannot believe that it has been almost 2 years since I have seen you :(

Wishing My Favorite Marine a Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Greggie!!!!My little brother, Greggie (as I like to call him), is 25 today! He is sadly celebrating in Iraq...BUT, he is heading home soon (August) and will be getting out of the Marines (for a second time) this September. I am not that familiar with the military rules, but I hope that means that he stays OUT this time.

So, what to say about my little brother...

He is one of the sweetest people I know, a true sweetheart, and definitely one of my most favorite people. He does not talk a lot, but I can!!! So, it works out, unless we are on the phones, because we both suck at phone conversations. I was one grade above him so we were usually always at the same school, which was nice. We were very close growing up...I loved that I could beat up on him. Then he reached high school and grew taller than me! Now he gets his revenge by showing me all the things he learned in the Marine Corp...not cool! I was very sad when he told us he was signing up and I have hated it the whole time he was in, but I am so proud of him. You can tell that he has a lot of respect by the people he works with and he accomplished a lot while serving.

Even though he is my younger brother he has always been very protective of me and even treats me like I am the younger one sometimes. I was very sad to move away from him. He had spent 4 years stationed in Hawaii (lucky) and travelling between Japan and Australia (yes, I am jealous you made it there first) and when he moved back to Oregon, I moved to Virginia. He was able to visit me last summer though!! We took him to Gettsyburg and D.C., he loves military history. Colin ADORED his uncle! He had such a great time with him and he even looked around the apartment for him the day he left. That was sad to watch. I am anxiously awaiting the next time I get to see him (hint, hint). Just to explain, the above picture is of him and our cousin Chris, they are very close...and weird!

Greggie - Happy birthday!!!! I love you and miss you soooo much!!! I cannot wait for you to be back in the states so I can bug you to come out for a visit. I hope you have a wonderful day, hopefully you are not terribly bored :) The next time I see you I will buy you a beer to celebrate your quarter of a century on this wonderful earth! If you are still turned off of alcohol from your first and maybe last hangover experience (so you say) then it can be a root beer!!! By-the-way, I was so sad I was not there to tease you the morning of your hangover but talking with you on the video cam was priceless!

Love you little brother -

Cambridge, MD

Since Wednesday I have been in Cambridge, MD. I had a lot of fun! Even though I love traveling to the other locations, it was nice tobe close to home, so that Will and Colin could come up for the weekend. So much to talk about...where to start??? Well, the hotel was BEAUTIFUL!! There was so much to do. Plenty of pools, sand volleyball, a huge gym, golf, beautiful trails and of course the bay. A great place to relax and was just wonderful. Most of Thursday consisted of meetings. One of which we were split into teams and had to build a boat out of cardboard and one member of each team had to paddle the boat through a coarse in the bay. The guest speaker this year was the founder of Cakelove. A bakery in DC, which has now grown into 7 stores over the northern VA and MD area. Even though I am not much of a dessert person (and actually did not try any of his cupcakes - I gave mine to Will - which he loved), I found him to be a very interesting speaker. He was a lawyer for the Federal Government but decided he wanted to follow his passion for baking. He is very into natural ingredients and baking everything from scratch. . So, for my dessert loving family members maybe we will venture to his store when you visit!
The food was wonderful! Maryland is known for their crabs (blue crab mostly), so of course, we had a few opportunities to have steamed crab and crab cakes. So, for the first time in my life I actually picked the meat from my crab. I had to break its legs off and everything (gross) I made myself try it and I only did one. The meat was really good, but I had issues with seeing it in its normal form (shell).I luckily was next to someone who has been eating crab like this since she was a kid, so she gave me a lesson.
So, this year Will and Colin came up for part of the week. It was great! I am usually not away from my two guys very often so I was really missing them. Colin loved the hotel, he was running around every where. On Friday night, Will got to play in his new band. They were fantastic! Will, John and Lloyd got to play about 6 songs during the middle set. They played "No Matter What" (Badfinger), The Joker (Steve Miller Band), "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" (ZZ Top), "Handle with Care" (The Traveling Wilburys), "Redemption Song" (Bob Marley) and "Brian Wilson" (Barenaked Ladies). They did great!!!!! I was so proud of Will! Everybody loved it!
The other star of the night was Colin! With the exception of when Will played, Colin was dancing on the dance floor all night (and I was afraid he was going to be shy)! He entertained everyone...they thought he was so cute! He even was chasing a friend's girl who is about the same age (I am probably getting a glimpse of the future, haha). I will post pics on myspace/facebook but not here since another person's child is in most of them.
 

We also got to visit with Will's aunt Mary Anne, uncle Jerre, cousin Kristin and her husband Terrick and son Garrett on our way home today. Will and Colin also visited all of them yesterday as well (his cousin Kevin was there then). We had a very nice visit.

It was such a wonderful week but I am so glad to be home!!!!

A Movie Review - My Sister's Keeper

Last night a friend and I went to see My Sister's Keeper. I had very high hopes because I am a big fan of the book ( I have read it like 3 times). If you have not read anything by Jodi Picoult, then I highly recommend her - she is a great author and one of my favorites!

To give you a very brief synopsis of the story. An 11 year old girl is suing her parents for medical emancipation. She is a test tube baby that was conceived to be a perfect donor for her older sister who has cancer.

The movie has a great cast:


Cameron Diaz (nice to see her try something with more depth)
Alec Baldwin
Abigail Bresslin (smaller part for her than I expected - Main character in the book)
Jason Patric
Sofia Vassilieva (she was really good)

If someone has not read the book, then you may really enjoy the movie (bring tissues). If you are a fan of the book, then you may end up pretty disappointed. For the most part, I thought the movie was good, but Nick Cassevetes (The Notebook) did not stay true to the book. The changes were not minor either. A lot of good storyline was left out, making it hard to get to know the characters; even the main character in the book. Plus, the ending (obviously I will not give any details) but it was not nearly as good as the book. I was probably the only person that was not crying at the end. I was soooo disappointed with the changes that they made that I was too frustrated to cry.

The changes that were made take away from the essence of the story. Jodi Picoult tends to write about controversial topics (which is one of the reasons I enjoy her so much) and the movie was just turned into a typical "we want to make you cry" movies.

So, if you do not have plans to read the book, I am sure you will really enjoy the movie, but if you have any interest in the book, I highly recommend that over the movie.